Abstract
Considerable progress has been attained in media streaming technology recently. It is now possible to combine digital images with synchronized audio and video content to create live or on-demand slide shows for the Web. In more advanced settings, the images can also be annotated for synchronized playback. However, despite advances in data compression and congestion control, media streaming is still sensitive to the fluctuation of network traffic. In this paper, we propose a new web presentation tool that uses text-to-speech synthesis as an alternative to audio streaming. On playback the synchronization of slide annotations and transitions with the synthetic narration can be preserved without concerns for the individual differences in the users' environments in terms of CPU power and bandwidth availability. The implemented prototype includes a standalone production client and a web playback client.

Abstract
Streaming technologies, with the introduction of synchronized media support, are now able to produce a more faithful copy of classroom lectures, and hence, meet better the distance education needs. At the same time, streaming content creation and distribution tools are also widely available. However, many of these tools are not designed to allow users to edit, reuse, and share contents. Without such flexibility, authors' productivity and opportunities for incremental content refinement are greatly constrained. For example, users cannot import parts from an existing web presentation into another one. In this paper, we describe a streaming authoring tool that we have developed to facilitate the editing of the parts of a slideshow presentation and assembly of those parts into future presentations.